The way Lydia Martyn of the Indy Ignite sees it, the work happening behind closed doors is finally showing up when the lights burn brightest.
“That’s what we do in practice every day,” Martyn said. “It’s just starting to click in games.”
Martyn and her Indy Ignite teammates made it look effortless on March 12. However, the numbers tell a story of precision and balance. The Ignite swept the defending Major League Volleyball (MLV) champion Orlando Valkyries 25-20, 25-22, 25-17 at Fishers Event Center, pushing their win streak to eight games and improving to an MLV-record 14-2 on the season.
The victory marked Indy’s fifth sweep of the year, extending their dominance over Orlando, whom they’ve now beaten three straight times this year.
For a moment in the second set, the script threatened to flip. Orlando built an 18-14 lead, and Ignite head coach Lauren Bertolacci signaled for a timeout. When play resumed, Azhani Tealer checked in.
The 2025 All-MLV First Team selection hadn’t seen significant action in six matches while recovering from an ankle injury. Tealer made her presence felt immediately, scoring four of Indy’s next six points during an 8-1 run that reversed the set entirely.
“When you haven’t played for a second and you’re on the bench, you kind of realize how fun it is to be out there,” Tealer said. “I just wanted to have fun because I missed being out there, so just going in there and having a little fun and changing the energy and hopefully going back and winning the set. So, we did that.”
A pair of Martyn kills closed out the frame, and the Ignite never looked back.
Orlando entered the match with a specific game plan: slow down Martyn and force Indy out of tempo from the service line. The Valkyries executed well in stretches, mainly in the second set, but couldn’t sustain it.
“With Indy specifically, we wanted to shut Lydia Martyn down,” Orlando coach Amy Pauly said. “We think when Lydia gets shut down, it makes things harder for everybody else. And she had a fantastic night.”
Martyn finished perfect from the floor, scoring all 10 of her points on kills without an error on 13 attempts — a 77% kill percentage that even surprised her.
“To be honest, this number, it’s very surprising because I never really look at these, but I am proud of myself for that,” Martyn said.
But as Pauly noted, the Ignite’s danger lies in their diversity. Anna DeBeer led all scorers with 14 points on 11 kills and three blocks. Lektor Member-Meneh added 13 points and Tealer contributed 11 in just 1.5 sets. Setter Mia Tuaniga orchestrated the attack with 43 assists, averaging 14.3 per set.
The Ignite finished with season highs in hitting percentage (49.5%) and kill efficiency (38%).
The third set followed a now-familiar pattern. Tied at 15, Indy unleashed a 10-2 run that featured contributions from five different players — Tuaniga, Martyn, Tealer, Member-Meneh and DeBeer — as every point came from the Ignite offense.
Bertolacci credited her team’s composure, particularly against an Orlando squad that made multiple lineup changes throughout the night.
“We had great composure today,” Bertolacci said. “It was a difficult game. They changed their lineups a lot, they did a few things pretty good; they served really well. We had a little bit of trouble there, but we were very composed and we were able to play our game around that.”
The Valkyries dropped to an 8-9 record with the loss, unable to solve an Indy team that continues to pull the proverbial rug from beneath them.
The Ignite now hits the road for a matchup against Omaha on March 14, airing on the Roku Sports Channel.
Contact Multimedia Reporter Noral Parham at 317-762-7846. Follow him on X @3Noral. For more news, visit indianapolisrecorder.com.
Noral Parham is the multi-media reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder, one of the oldest Black publications in the country. Prior to joining the Recorder, Parham served as the community advocate of the MLK Center in Indianapolis and senior copywriter for an e-commerce and marketing firm in Denver.
